Welcome back to Behind Closed Ovens, where we take a look at the best and strangest stories from inside the food industry. We had so many stories of dumb restaurant customers (and you guys sent so many more in—so very, very, very many more) that we decided to do another week of them. As always, these are real e-mails from real readers.
Jack McCarthy:
I used to work at a coffee shop in South Lake Tahoe. During the summer, the town is overrun with tourist-types who come for gambling, boating, or just to get away from L.A..
One afternoon, we have a long line of people getting drinks and I’m on the register taking orders. A woman in her late-forties-to-early-fifties that looks like Paula Dean walks up in a turquoise jumpsuit and says in a cartoonish southern accent, “Do y’all have any Tupperwares?”
Obviously, I’m confused. I let her know that when we do to-go orders, they come in a paper cup. She continues, “Oh, I don’t need a drink. I’m looking for some Tupperwares to carry some of the lake in.”
Me: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
Turquoise Southern Belle: “My husband has a boat and we’ve been out on the lake a few times.” She gestures to her husband, a rotund man leaning against the wall wearing a cowboy hat and a bola tie with a wristwatch that cost more than my degree. He smiles and literally tips his hat. “I’m trying to get a sample of each color of the lake.”
After a few seconds of disbelief, I realize what she’s asking for. She wants to collect some green water, some blue water, and some indigo water of Lake Tahoe to bring home. Because she doesn’t realize that water gets “darker” as the lake deepens.
We gave her a handful of plastic baggies and wished her luck.
Twitter user @malewaitress:
I helped open a place and stayed there for 2.5 years. One of the clever dishes the owners created was a plate of smoked, fried buffalo chicken legs. They called the dish “Smokin’ Hot Legs.” So clever.
It began with the multiple-times-per-shift customer question of, “What kind of legs are these?”
After six months, I convinced management to alter the menu to say “Smokin’ Hot Chicken Legs.”
My victory was small. A new daily question arose: “Are these chicken legs wings?”
My answers to this question would vary as time progressed. One reply was, “it’s like the wing, but it’s the leg part of the chicken instead of the wing.”
One girl told me she’d never heard of eating chicken legs before. I brought her the dish, and she argued with me that the legs were wings. Finally I just told her, “I guess I agree with you, in the sense that you wear your shoes on your hands.”
2.5 years and when I quit, they just started selling chicken wings.
Steve Biletti:
I was bartending at a restaurant in Manhattan with an open kitchen and chef’s bar that faced the cooks. This guy came in with his date for dinner and sits at the chef’s bar the first thing he asks is, “Hey, can you do me a special favor for me and my date tonight?”
“Well, what is it?”
“Its a big favor but it would be really really appreciated.”
“What is it?”
“Can you make us those delicious pancakes you guys serve for brunch?”
Okay, never mind that this asshole just asked for pancakes as a way to impress his date while we have 40 dollar steaks and things of that sort on the menu for dinner. It actually gets worse. Knowing that no way in hell the chef we would do that, I simply just pointed to the flat grill which he was sitting across from. On the grill there were about 8 fillets of fish on there sizzling away. To which I say: “See that grill with all the fish on it. That’s where we would have to cook those pancakes.”
The guy goes, “what’s the big deal?”
I politely explain it to him, and he finally understands that having fish-flavored pancakes probably isn’t the best idea. Then I smoothly transition into giving him the specials, one which was Tete de Cochon.
Excitedly he asks, “Oh were you guys one of New York Magazine’s top ten Brooklyn restaurants serving pig’s head?”
“Well, no sir, because the restaurant you currently find yourself in is actually in Manhattan.”
Paul Carter:
I manage a pub, and if we ever run out of a draft beer, we keep an old purple velvet bag from the Crown Royal bottles to cover the tap so people know it’s not available. One evening, a customer comes in and is browsing the selection of draft beer and says to me “You have Crown Royal on tap?”
I immediately say, “Yes, would you like a pint or a pitcher?”
The customer says “Let me ask my friends,” and turns to find her friends, who start laughing hysterically when she asks them if they would like a pint or pitcher worth of Crown Royal.
Brenda Bottley:
I spent two years in high school and four years in college working in restaurants. Although I have plenty of horror stories of my own, one of the most recent and mind-boggling happened while I was a guest at a restaurant in a north suburb of Chicago.
My boyfriend at the time and I were enjoying our dinner and casually talking when a woman and her husband, probably in their mid-40s, were sat next to us. The woman immediately started criticizing their menu and snapping at their waiter to come to their table despite the fact that he was clearly taking another table’s order at the time. The waiter eventually makes it over to the couple and the conversation between the woman and the waiter goes as follows:
Woman: “I don’t see any gluten-free options on this menu! Online it says you have a gluten-free menu available. Why is it not on my table?”
Waiter: “I apologize about that ma’am, I would be happy to get that for you right away.”
Woman: “GOOD! I go back and forth about being a vegetarian, so I need to order from the gluten-free menu to maintain my vegetarian diet.”
Wat?
The waiter returns with the menu and after many questions, the woman orders the salmon and made sure to tell the waiter, “make sure there is NO gluten. I cannot eat gluten!” He responds that he understands and will make sure her meal is completely gluten-free.
After a few minutes, my boyfriend and I hear the woman complaining to her husband about their waiter not serving them any bread before the meal. Oh boy. Sure enough, the woman starts snapping her fingers again at their waiter who returns asking what he can do for them.
Woman: “Don’t you serve bread before the meal? It’s been almost five minutes and I’m hungry and want our bread!”
Waiter: “But ma’am…the bread has gluten in it, and you told me you could not eat gluten.”
Woman: “BUT I CAN EAT BREAD! I WANT TO SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER IMMEDIATELY ABOUT THE BREAD THAT IS SUPPOSED TO COME WITH MY MEAL!”
Husband: “But it has gluten in it…”
At this point, my boyfriend and I were heading out the door and never found out how this story ended. I would like to think that this lady was schooled on the difference between gluten-free and vegetarian and proper manners in a restaurant by some annoyed manager/waiter/chef after we left.
(Editor’s Note: It had been far too long since we had a gluten-free doofus in one of these stories.)
Jamie Kane:
Last week I was at Subway. I could tell immediately that the woman in front of me was a problem customer. A million questions—how much does each sandwich cost, what if she adds a soup, are the soups good, are the cookies good, etc. She finally selects her sandwich, and the employee prepares the bread and meat, then asks what kind of cheese she would like. She says “The white kind.”
The employee looks nonplussed, as they offer several types of cheese, all of which are white. He says they have provolone, swiss, american, etc, and she cuts him off and loudly says “THE WHITE ONE, JEEZ,” then she looks back to me and rolls her eyes in presumed solidarity and “whispers” loudly “Can you believe this guy?”
He uncertainly started putting a slice of each different cheese on the sandwich and she says really patronizingly, “Now, that wasn’t hard, was it?” What was hard: refraining from suggesting that “white” is not a type of cheese.
Dan Perkins:
I had a customer once who ordered their steak “medium-rare, with no pink in it.” This led to a back and forth discussion about steak doneness that the server had to relay. The customer was informed that medium-rare involved the steak having quite a bit of pink meat and that perhaps they had a well-done or medium-well in mind. No, they always got medium rare with no pink in it, they would never eat steak medium-well or well-done, they wanted medium-rare with no pink in it.
Finally, we cooked them a well done steak which they pronounced to be “Just what [they] ordered. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
Janelle Mason:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
